Unity URP Roadmap 🎮, C++ Ref Counting 👨💻, Epic Mocap 🤖
Tech & Engine Shifts 🔧
Unity’s 2026 Graphics Shake‑Up: Built‑In Deprecated, HDRP on Life Support
Unity has announced a major graphics roadmap shift that effectively crowns URP as the one true render pipeline. The Built‑in Render Pipeline will be officially deprecated starting in Unity 6.5, with support only guaranteed through Unity 6.7 LTS, while HDRP enters a maintenance‑only phase focused on stability and Nintendo Switch 2 support. Unity says this move tackles fragmentation and complexity, but it also forces studios to rethink pipeline choices and begin migrations to URP or other SRPs.
Intrusive Reference Counting in C++ Game Engines Explained
Hazel’s codebase is full of `Ref` types—but they’re not just typedefs to `std::shared_ptr`. This talk explains intrusive reference counting: a `Ref` wrapper holds the pointer while the reference counter lives inside a `RefCounted` base class, enabling objects to safely create references to themselves and be shared across threads. Using concrete examples, including worker threads and render submission, it contrasts this approach with `shared_ptr`, `enable_shared_from_this`, and Boost’s intrusive pointers. It’s a practical guide to safe, automatic memory management in C++ engines.
Smarter Workflows & Design Patterns 🧠
Forget ECS: Anton Mikhailov’s Simple ‘Thing System’ for Games
Anton Mikhailov walks through a practical alternative to full-blown ECS: a flat array of “things” backed by a slot-map, generation-based handles, and an intrusive free list for O(1) allocation. He shows how this setup avoids use-after-free bugs, keeps cache behavior reasonable, and stays easy to refactor for solo and small-team projects. The discussion covers fat structs vs SoA, particles, large worlds, and when heavy abstractions simply aren’t worth it. If you want an entity system you fully own and understand, this is it.
How MMO 98 Was Built in 7 Weeks Under Pressure
In just seven weeks, this tiny studio took MMO 98 from a random idea to a live Steam Next Fest demo—because they had to. With their finances strained and a previous project unlikely to pay off, they pivoted hard into the booming incremental genre and leaned on years of shipped games and tight collaboration. Early playtests showed players sticking around far longer than expected, and organic press even boosted wishlists. The dev walks through the realities, tradeoffs, and lessons behind shipping fast under pressure.
Tools & VFX for Modern Pipelines 🎨
New Godot Smoke VFX Pack Delivers 3D Look Without the Cost
Binbun’s new Godot smoke VFX pack fakes volumetric smoke using billboard sprites, spherical normals, and a noise-based normal map to achieve a convincing 3D look. A single Smoke Controller script in the editor lets you tweak shading style, density, edges, proximity fade, color, and speed. Performance can be optimized by adjusting resolution, shadows, and emission.
Epic Buys Meshcapade: Markerless Mocap Heads Into Unreal Engine
Epic Games is acquiring Meshcapade, a SMPL-based toolkit for markerless motion capture and realistic 3D human models. Teams already use it across Cinema 4D, Maya, iClone, Marvelous Designer, and Unreal for precise hand tracking, accurate foot contact, and multi-character interactions. Once Meshcapade closes in April, its tech will be folded into MetaHuman and Unreal Engine. The move strengthens Epic’s character animation stack amid rising interest in AI-assisted tools like Cascadeur.